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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Sexy Evil Genius

I'd never heard of this movie until someone I know mentioned
it favorably. I looked it up, saw that it has Seth Green, Katee Sackhoff, and
Michelle Trachtenburg, all of whom I like, in it, so I thought we might as well
give it a chance.

First of all, I don't care for that title. It just sounds clunky to me. But the
premise is intriguing: several people are summoned to a bar in Los Angeles by
an ex-lover, and when she's late showing up, they sit around and trade stories
about her. She's the sexy evil genius of the title, and as the stories about
her continue, it's revealed that she killed a man and has spent time in an
institution for the criminally insane.

Or is all that just one of the elaborate fictional histories she likes to
create for herself?

Yeah, this is one of those movies where you can't trust anything you see or
hear, and that becomes even more true when Nikki (Katee Sackhoff) finally shows
up at the bar with her current lover. Most of the movie consists of this group
of people sitting around a table talking and throwing various theories about
the truth back and forth. If you're going to make a movie that's almost all
dialogue and little action, it had better be damned good dialogue. For the most
part, it is. When things finally start to get intense, the movie creates some
genuine suspense. There's not really enough to call it a thriller, but I didn't
lose interest, either.

The acting is good all around. The twist ending seemed a little weak to me, and
the whole plot is one of those where you have to squint your eyes and hold your
mouth just right for it to make sense, but the movie moves right along and is
pretty entertaining. Don't expect a great film, but SEXY EVIL GENIUS is worth
watching.